Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

That's really good news, because clearly the Australian public deserve to know the basis behind any of these deals. But obviously the proof of the accuracy of those responses will be in any decisions that get taken into the future in relation to those really important issues. We know the Australian Labor Party went to the election making a whole heap of promises to the Australian public about their behaviour, and subsequent to the election we have only seen them change their mind and backflip on so many of these things. The Australian public should be very concerned about the willingness of this government, what it's prepared to do, when it needs to get some piece of legislation through.

The reality is that as we're standing here today we've got a piece of legislation that we know is faulty—and I'll ask some questions of the minister in relation to that in a minute. We know it's a really dodgy piece of legislation, because if the government was really determined to put through and provide additional funding to this type of housing then why on Earth is it not on the balance sheet? That is the question every Australian taxpayer should be asking: why have they gone and engineered this weird financial instrument, which is only ever used in quite extreme circumstances like the future fund? Why on Earth have they put it off balance sheet, particularly at a time when they're making a whole heap of commitments in relation to the amount of money that's going to be expended each year as a result of this particular fund? Yet anybody who's done economics 101 would understand that what the government is promising here is not able to be delivered.

To that end, Minister: during your second reading concluding remarks you made a commitment that $500 million would be disbursed every year, plus indexation. First of all, I believe it was a funding cap of $500 million. In your contribution, Minister, you were quite clear that $500 million would be disbursed every year. So, I'm just seeking clarification from you: is it a funding cap of up to $500 million a year? Or is it that, as you said in your second reading statement, $500 million a year plus indexation will be disbursed every year subsequent to 2024?